Well, Regan has conveniently decided to launch a witch hunt
against his main challenger in SEIU-UHW’s upcoming internal officer elections.
His goal? He apparently wants to knock his challenger off the ballot before the
campaign begins!

Here's what's happening.

Ten days ago, Sophia
Sims received a letter from SEIU-UHW announcing that she’s been charged
with “gross disloyalty or conduct unbecoming a member” and “aiding a rival
labor organization.” Sims is a rank-and-file member at Kaiser Permanente who came within several thousand votes of defeating Regan during SEIU-UHW's officer elections in 2011.

According to the letter (see below), SEIU-UHW officials have
appointed a “Trial Body” to conduct a hearing against Sims.

So WTF is an “SEIU Trial Body?” Good question. As far as
Tasty can tell, it’s totally mysterious. Interestingly, SEIU’s rules prohibit Sims
from being represented by an attorney.

What “crimes” did Sims commit?

Well… remember the NLRB’s recent re-run election between
NUHW and SEIU-UHW for 45,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente? SEIU-UHW says that during
the election, Sims “publicly campaigned for NUHW” by wearing NUHW buttons and
t-shirts, handing out leaflets in support of NUHW, and even appearing in flyers
in support of NUHW.

That’s it? Yup.

Apparently, the geniuses over at SEIU haven’t realized that
the whole purpose of the federal government’s election was to allow Kaiser workers
like Sims to freely choose -- and advocate for -- whichever union they want to
represent them. In fact, federal law protects workers' right to do exactly this!

Tasty bets the Feds will be none too pleased when they learn
that Dave Regan is punishing SEIU’s own members for simply exercising their
democratic rights during government-administered elections. Way to go Dave!

Plus, if Sims is guilty of “gross disloyalty” for wearing an
NUHW t-shirt or button, then there are more than 10,000 other SEIU-UHW members
who did the same thing!

So why is Regan going to such great lengths to try to knock
Sims out of SEIU-UHW’s upcoming officer elections? Sources tell Tasty he’s
genuinely concerned about the outcome.

In 2011, Sims campaigned on a platform
of making SEIU-UHW more transparent and democratic, and giving better
representation to the union’s members. During that election, Regan got only
7,000 votes from the union’s entire membership of 140,000 workers. Meanwhile,
in the recently concluded NLRB election, 13,100 Kaiser workers voted for NUHW,
which campaigned on similar themes.

Finally… in case Regan’s action against Sims isn’t ridiculous
enough, Dave added a flourish of idiocy that’s icing on the cake. Did you
happen to notice which SEIU official sent the letter to Sims announcing her trial for “disloyalty”
and “aiding a rival labor union”?

Lyles is currently the Vice President of SEIU-UHW. But in
the run-up to SEIU’s disastrous trusteeship of SEIU-UHW in 2009, Lyles was a
rank-and-file California hospital worker who attacked SEIU for being
undemocratic, cutting backroom deals with Bosses, and selling out the union’s
members.

In fact, Lyles said these and many other “disloyal” things
during videotaped speeches to Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Labor Notes and
others. After the trusteeship, SEIU offered him a big paycheck to switch sides, so Lyles pocketed the cash and teamed up with Regan.

Sophia Sims might wanna bring a projector to
her “disloyalty” trial so she can show a few clips from speeches by SEIU-UHW’s
Vice President like this one! These are some of Stan's "disloyal" quotes from the video:

We have an
International union that’s trying to take our voice away. They’re trying to do
whatever they can to stop the members from having a say in their local.

We refuse to let the
International Union come in and make backdoor deals with the corporation to
undermine our membership.

[At Tenet hospitals,]
the International Union came in and tried to make a deal to outsource over 10
percent of our membership.

[At Catholic
Healthcare West,] the International Union dissolved our Unity Council. The
International tried to take over our bargaining. [CHW executives] were hoping
that SEIU International would have us in trusteeship so they could make a
backdoor deal.

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